We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Middle America isn’t frothing over Obamacare because we are a nation of racist policy wonks who did the math and hate the blacks. The public is angry first (as Edsall mostly seems to understand) because of the supremely infuriating blend of incompetent arrogance our Second Lincoln has brought to the greatest domestic challenge of his presidency. They are angry because an expensive and cumbersome new piece of social engineering looks badly engineered. But in the second place, they are angry because the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and its journalistic spear carriers in the MSM systematically misrepresented the nature of the new system.

Does Edsall or anybody else really think that Obamacare would have passed Congress if public opinion had understood back in 2010 that all those assurances about keeping your plan and your doctors were as bogus as the old line that the check is in the mail?

The senator mentioned in this piece is the State senator Reed (different man, different spelling). The reason I have posted this is so MF readers will understand that Obama Care was a long time in the planning. WA state never had an "insurance commissioner" until this woman was brought in from Chicago--years ago.
http://www.sos.wa.gov/heritage/biographies/DeborahSenn.aspx

If sandwiches are racist then for the same reasons tacos and burittos would be racist as well. If a ethnic food is racist because it fails the diversity trap (I mean test) then all ethnic foods are racist. Too bad because I love Mexican food. Damn I love Italian food too. What's a person to do if they truly want to embrace diversity?

PB&J might be racist in the Peoples Republic of Portland-Eugene, but here in the Libertarian Deep South it's a Redneck favorite for a quick lunch. I eat PB&J on a hamburger bun a couple of times a week. Sometimes without the jelly.

They have to have a war on achievement because they can't figure out how to redistribute it to the "Why should I work" crowd. They tried to give achievement to everyone but even the little kids knew who'd have achieved and who hadn't. So they must make achievement a bad thing.

And as always, the claims for the downtrodden are smoke to cover the socialist's inadequacies. Those that did achieve some materialistic success support it because they view others as intrinsically inadequate and must not be expected to succeed:

QUOTE:

Since the socialist grieves at the unequal distribution of material wealth, and regards a better distribution as essential to the reformation of society, one is obliged to ask at once why the socialist does not himself set to work and accumulate wealth as well as others? In our country there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of cases where men have begun with nothing and accumulated a competence. Why do not the socialists do the same? If material wealth is the cure-all, why not go in at once and get it? The answer is not far to seek. They claim that they have no chance of success in the competitive struggle with others. They wish wealth, but they do not possess the bourgeois virtues necessary for its acquisition under existing conditions. Therefore, they wish to rearrange society so that those who do not now have the industrial qualities may obtain wealth as well as those who do have them. Of course, they do not explain who is to produce the wealth they are to share, and which they are incompetent to produce. That is supposedly an insignificant detail. However this may be, the central point in the question is this: having admitted their failure to achieve success in accumulating material wealth in a competitive struggle open freely to all, they propose the abolition of free competition. State control is to take its place. Here we have socialism confessedly as a philosophy of failure. Just to the extent that the socialists insist on their inability to accumulate as much wealth as others, under existing conditions, they are unconsciously advertising their own industrial inefficiency. They clamor for a philosophy of failure -- for a system in which they shall be relieved from the inevitable results of their relative inferiority in obtaining the material means which they regard as essential to their idealistic ends.

The filibuster change seems like a major admission by the Dem's that they are unlikely to be in charge much longer. They will now ram through a record number of judicial appointments before the 2014 elections knock them out of power for 10-12 years. Of course, if the Rep's have a big year due to Obamacare, watch them screw it up.

I have a different view. I see it as another step in getting rid of the Constitution. There are aspects of our government that seem arcane to even some who have thought about it and most haven't so it probably seems nuts to them. More of those 'arcane' rules and procedures will be done away with as they can. They are relentless in pushing the country to democracy which will be the end of it as we know it because then the protection of the minority will be eradicated and they will always either keep anti-fascists as the actual or perceived minority. Then their dream can be achieved - no accountability to anybody.

You are correct that the Constitution does not dictate rules of the Senate or House, but the Constitution includes safeguards for minorities and the filibuster rules were devised in that spirit. Those safeguards are not always easy to explain (probably harder to explain than a filibuster). If you attack one and succeed, there is no reason not to attack others that get in your way. After all, we all like democracy, right? How many people know our system is not a democracy and that it is not one for particular reasons? As soon as you have a democracy, you have mob rule and the mob can decide who the mob is.

On a separate but related note, what keeps the president from using government agencies in unConstitutional ways? Obviously Obummer isn't the first president to do so, but I believe the tenor of his abuses is more sinister than most others. Usually, abuses are for a policy or political use - often for his benefit, but Obummer has wielded the government in ways that directly harm or inconvenience Americans.

So back to my question - what keeps the president in check (other than his own reservations, honor, belief in the Constitution, fear of retribution)? Law suits. These are a slow tool and by the time a suit works its way to the Supreme Court, he could be gone and the rest of the government is on to something else. If he were, for example, to decide that the D.C. Federal Court was too small and decided to pack it a la Roosevelt, challenging his actions as well as subsequent leftists' would be much tougher.

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